Middle-Earth campaign map?

[macsen rufus]

Hi guys,

Stazi, this is as Cegorach says, a really, really stunning discovery. It's the Holy Grail for me, and I've been playing with it for my Ancient mod (which is now back in development after a few years).

First off, there is ONE limit - it seems you can only(!!) have 50 such buildings, trying to build any more causes a CTD. That said, my plan was (and it's been mostly successful) is to make an indesructible building for every province. Alas the limit of 50 cuts in - I have 56 provinces on my current map, so it fell just short....

Anyway what I have done is create 50 buidings in the build_prod, all with the Forest Clearing local string. The labels (ie build_prod name) I have used are province names, and they are all non-producers and unique. They have a build requirement of the top tier castle (just to keep them out of the build panel during the game). For the review-panel icon I just saved a bif with 'the purest green' (sorry, couldn't resist a Blackadder reference there...) ie transparent, and I made an info_pic bif the same (336x448 of transparency), called it 'BLANK' and referenced to that for the info_pic string. I set the name and description translations for Forest Clearing to " " so nothing will show on the parchment.

This is how it looks in-game:




The build_prod looks like this:



0 CYRENAICA "Forest Clearing" "NON_PRODUCER, UNIQUE" "100" 1 {CASTLE10} "BLANK" etc
0 ILLYRIA "Forest Clearing" "NON_PRODUCER, UNIQUE" "100" 1 {CASTLE10} "BLANK" etc
0 LIBYA "Forest Clearing" "NON_PRODUCER, UNIQUE" "100" 1 {CASTLE10} "BLANK" etc
0 MACEDONIA "Forest Clearing" "NON_PRODUCER, UNIQUE" "100" 1 {CASTLE10} "BLANK" etc
0 CRETE "Forest Clearing" "NON_PRODUCER, UNIQUE" "100" 1 {CASTLE10} "BLANK" etc
0 AGRIANA "Forest Clearing" "NON_PRODUCER, UNIQUE" "100" 1 {CASTLE10} "BLANK" etc
................. for 50 entries



and I build them all in the startpos:


MakeBuilding:: ID_LANDREG_01 CYRENAICA
MakeBuilding:: ID_LANDREG_02 ILLYRIA
MakeBuilding:: ID_LANDREG_03 LIBYA
MakeBuilding:: ID_LANDREG_04 MACEDONIA
MakeBuilding:: ID_LANDREG_05 CRETE
MakeBuilding:: ID_LANDREG_06 AGRIANA
................. for 50 entries


This means now I can do the (previously) impossible and force some buildings to be available only in certain provinces without using up any 'resource' slots, simply by adding the province name as a build requirement.

Taking it even further, it will be possible to have a totally different tech-tree in different provinces! How cool is that?!?!? You can for instance stop churches being built in provinces that have a Muslim culture, just by setting up the build requirements to exclude those Muslim provinces.

Then a further thought: so far I've set these up with no upgrades, but I think it might be possible (still mulling it over...) to find a way to force a province into choosing between two alternative paths of development, but I haven't got there yet...

Other applications: of course the build_prod entries for each of these buildings (I call them 'province resources', for want of anything better) can be edited seperately for things like mercenary magnetism, faith propagation, even income and troop upgrades such as morale, weapons and armour. And there's no reason you couldn't attach offices to these buildings either, so it could be an indestructible way to hand out scrolls to selected factions only...

Really, there is so much you can do with this. Admittedly, if you have a campaign map with a lot of provinces you can't make a province resource for every single one of them, but you know that 50 of them can get some very special treatment!

One last note: when adding them to the build_prod file, put them at the bottom, so the 'invisible' building in the review panel is always at the end and doesn't leave a gap between other buildings.

Stazi, you're a genius for finding this - many digital beers to you

[dimitrios the samian]

Im glad you noticed this Mac .... & moreso that you can implement it into the Ancient scenarios
I hope both stazi & Ceg , eventually implement it also
cheers guys

[Leith]

Hey guys! I hope you're doing well Stazi. I wonder if this mod is still being developed. I'm willing to help if needed.

P.S I found the metw files on the metw main thread. You just have to look hard.